Departmental Staff

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many, and what percentage of officers in each of grades 1 to 7 and overall in his Department are(a) women, (b) from ethnic minorities and (c) disabled, respectively.

protection of classified material. Information on the number of such contracts is not readily available. As regards the FCO's buildings in central London, the guarding of the entrances and the patrolling of buildings where classified information is stored will shortly be put out to tender under the market testing programme. Six companies will be invited to bid, and the present in-house team will also be tendering. The FCO will award the contract to the contractor which offers the best overall value for money.